Making time.

• Author: Rose, Gene
• Position: Legislators and state government employees engage in fund-raising campaigns

The commitment to public service by state legislators and legislative staff doesn't end when office hours are over.

One trades analyzing numbers for riding bikes. Another puts down a gavel and picks up a hockey stick. Yet another takes off a tie to wear a uniform.

Across the country, state legislators and legislative staff - with little fanfare - extend their public service commitment beyond normal business hours in an effort to make their communities and states better places to live. They attend everything from auctions to potlucks and sometimes even get a workout to help state and community causes.

Like all Americans who devote time, energy and money to their favorite organizations, the charity work of those involved with state legislatures often is done behind the scenes and with little public notice. Here are a few examples that reached our desks.

PERSONALLY INVOLVED

How does a 55-year-old breast cancer survivor get on with her life after two mastectomies in six years? If she is Mary Noble, deputy state auditor of California and chair of the National Legislative Program Evaluation Society, she rides her bicycle hundreds of miles across central Alaska to raise funds to help others who are battling the disease.

In early June, Noble will join 19 other women, most of whom are themselves breast cancer survivors, on a six-day, 350-mile bike ride sponsored by the San Francisco-based Breast Cancer Fund. The riders will start near Mount McKinley, proceed through Fairbanks to the port of Valdez and finish, after a ferry transit, in the city of Anchorage. Noble plans to carry the names of breast cancer survivors, as well as the names of some who have died from the disease, with her on her journey.

Although her prognosis for complete recovery is good, she says, "You have to live with [breast cancer] and hope for the best."

Pledges for her Alaska ride far exceeded her initial goal. "Never in my wildest dreams did I think this could happen," she says, citing donations from friends and co-workers, as well as "people I had never heard of" from as far away as New York.

Another outlet for Noble includes taking part in triathlons, an activity she began five years ago. In fact, only a week after she returns from Alaska she will participate in a triathion in San Jose, part of a national series that benefits the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

CHASING CHILDHOOD IDOLS

When it comes to raising funds for the Hospice of Michigan, the puck drops here.

A charity hockey game featuring a team of current and former legislators and legislative staff - called the "State Capitol Sticks" - against alumni from the National Hockey League's Detroit Red Wings was arranged by Michigan House Speaker Curtis Hertel, the Red Wings owners and the hospice organization. The November match-up resulted in a...